


scared to death that you might stay the same

by advantagetexas



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Allison lived au, Church and Carolina are siblings, Church is stuck in the no ship shame basement, F/M, M/M, Repair Shops AU, until he can figure out how to be nice to his sister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-03 09:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6605566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/advantagetexas/pseuds/advantagetexas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And then there’s the other kind of shops. </p><p>The shops where the techs joust on the cherry pickers with makeshift lances and 1 ¼ wrenches. Where they play games of “who can fling the most screws into Wash’s sweatshirt hood from the top of the hydraulic lift before he notices and makes you get back to work”. Where they slack off for days on the simplest of jobs, and can’t talk to customers without either hitting on them or fumbling so badly over words that they sound like idiots. Where an intense rivalry between two such shops makes the corner of Blood Gulch Avenue a living hell for anyone who doesn’t work at Red’s Autobody or Captain Blu’s Auto Repair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Everyone Wants To Murder Simmons

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct sequel to "Licence Renewal is a Bitch", a oneshot I wrote a while back, which gives some context, but you can totally read this on its own without reading that tbh.

There are two types of repair shops. There are the immaculate, perfectly staffed with trained professionals, filled with bright shiny new toolboxes and tools kind of repairs shops. In those shops, jobs get done quickly, and correctly the first time every time. Every customer feels secure in knowing that their cars are really and truly fixed. The techs take pride in their workmanship, in every single successful repair.

And then there’s the other kind of shops.

The shops where the techs joust on the cherry pickers with makeshift lances and 1 ¼ wrenches. Where they play games of “who can fling the most screws into Wash’s sweatshirt hood from the top of the hydraulic lift before he notices and makes you get back to work”. Where they slack off for days on the simplest of jobs, and can’t talk to customers without either hitting on them or fumbling so badly over words that they sound like idiots. Where an intense rivalry between two such shops makes the corner of Blood Gulch Avenue a living hell for anyone who doesn’t work at Red’s Autobody or Captain Blu’s Auto Repair.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

“Do you ever wonder why we’re here?”

“Jesus Christ, please don’t start with this again,” Simmons groans from the driver’s seat of the shitty Honda he was currently running diagnostics on. Grif was sitting in the passenger seat, for no particular reason other than to avoid doing any _actual_ work while still making it seem like he was working. Oh, and to annoy Simmons, which seemed to be 40% of his reasoning for doing anything.

“Besides,” he continues, jotting down the codes the scan was registering, “That’s my line.”

“First of all, since when do we have lines? Second of all, don’t get uppity just because you’re tired of being here. You think I don’t want to be out of this hellhole as soon as possible too?”

Just as Grif says that, Lopez, the only one who ever did any actual work, passes by the window and gives them both a dirty look, muttering something that sounds like “tu es una mierda” in their direction, and then “Dios me libre de estos mamaguevos” to himself.

“Yeah, well you don’t have a date tonight, do you? No, no you don’t.” Simmons regrets saying anything as soon as he sees the look on Grif’s face change into one full of pure, maniacal glee.

“Is it the chick from the DMV? The hot one? You know you owe me for that, right? Like, you owe me big time.”

“No I don’t. I don’t owe you anything!”

“Without me arguing with you, you never would have met her! You _owe_ me.”

“Two pizzas?” Simmons sighs, dragging a hand down his face in stressed capitulation.

“Three.”

“You can have _two._ And some breadsticks.”

“Deal. That sounds like even stevens to me,” Grif says, leaning back in the seat. “So what does that chick even do for a job anyway? She’s like 6 feet tall and built like a Mac truck, it’s gotta be something in the military, right?”

“I mean, she’s an ex-marine, so there’s that. She also owns that really fancy specialty shop across town? The one that hires all those freelancers?”

“Wait, you said her name was Carolina, right?” Grif says, suddenly serious.

“Yeah…”Simmons replies, somewhat afraid of whatever caused the change in tone.

“Like, Carolina _Church_?”

“I think so, why?”

“You know the guy that runs the place across the street? The guy that’s fuckin’ _named_ Church? You think that might be his sister or something?”

And then it all made sense. The comments about the nameless little brother she was constantly complaining about, and his cadre of annoying friends. The one that wouldn’t stop hitting on her, the idiot that she said wasn’t too bad, the no nonsense one that she’d hoped would corral them, but had done the exact opposite. Oh god, he was dating a Blue. Not only that, but he was dating the fucking _matriarch_ of the Blues.

Sarge was gonna kill him.

\-------------------------------------------------------

“I’m gonna kill him.”

“Dude, you can’t just murder him ‘cause he’s banging your sister,” Tucker replies, sidestepping the stapler that immediately gets thrown in his general direction, and taking a special sense of pride in the shade of red that Church’s face was turning.

“He’s not BANGING MY SISTER!”

“Dude, he’s slamming that like a screen door in a hurricane, and you know it.”

“Tucker, I swear to god, don’t think I won’t fight you right here, right now.”

“Yeah, go ahead and try. You can’t aim for shit, dude, you’re garbage.”

“Fuck you, you’re garbage.” Church shakes his head angrily, then puts his hands over his face. “I can’t believe my sister is dating the Reds’ fuckin’ crown prince suck-up. Where did we go wrong?”

“Dude, she can get with whoever she wants. Sure, he’s scrawny as a toothpick, looks like someone sneezed coffee on his face, and has hair like a bag of fucking carrot peelings, but that’s what she’s into, I guess. I mean, I dunno why she’s after him when she could have all this,” he says, gesturing to his face like someone would gesture to a trophy they’d won. Church looks up from his hands momentarily to give Tucker probably the most scathing look he was capable of.

“Dude, you gotta stop. It’s been 12 years, just give up already.”

“Surrender is not a word that’s in my vocabulary, you should know that already.”

“Capitulate, surrender, yield, submit, succumb, pick an adjective and do it.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna do somethin’ alright,” Tucker says, raising an eyebrow suggestively, before just outright explaining, “What I mean is, I’m gonna keep trying to get with your sister.”

“I’ve always hated you the most, you know that, right? I hate you. As much as I hate you, I’d still take you over that Red motherfucker, goddamnit.”

“Take me? I mean, hey, if I can’t have one…” Tucker starts, before bounding down the stairs and out of the office the second he saw Church start to reach back for the heavy paperweight beside his computer.


	2. The Structural Stability of Glass

“So you’re…”

“Church’s sister, yeah,” Carolina says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the word. Which, to her, it might be. But to Simmons, it was the end of the fucking world. Here was fucking Ragnarok-incarnate, in the form of a pretty face and a set of washboard abs that would make Odin himself jealous.

“But that means you’re…you’re basically a Blue!”

“I mean, if we’re being technical, I own their shitty little shop. Literally.” She quirks an eyebrow and brushes a bit of loose hair out of her face in a way that makes Simmons’s heart jump into his throat. God, she was fucking beautiful. “Does that bother you?”

“N-no, of course not!” That wasn’t entirely true. He was actually _quite_ bothered by the fact that someone like her could be related to Crybaby Church of all people.

“Then I don’t see what the issue is.”

“Well, uh, my um, my boss might not like it too much. He’s…he’s a bit crazy when it comes to the whole rivalry thing.”

“Really? He didn’t seem too concerned about that one employee of yours showing up across the street all the time.”

For a second Simmons has zero clue who she could be talking about. And then it hits him that she has to be talking about Donut, the weird guy that kinda just showed up one day liked he worked there. Did they pay him? Did he even know anything about cars? Simmons had never seen him even so much as lift a single perfectly manicured finger, or have a single speck of rust in his immaculately coifed blonde undercut.

“I’m pretty sure he keeps hitting on Caboose, and the poor kid still has no clue. Church and Wash keep trying to chase him off, but he just keeps coming back,” Carolina continues, either blatantly ignoring or just not understanding Simmons’s momentary confusion. She sighs, tossing her gaze to one side before putting her head in her hands. “Don’t look now, but I think that my idiot brother and his equally idiotic employee are up to some weird shit in the backseat of Tucker’s shitty car, or they’re spying on us like a bunch of fucking five year olds.”

Sure enough, the second he looks to his left, he sees the familiar rusted blue pockmarked paint of one of the blue idiots’ busted imports, immediately followed by noticing that the entire car was rocking back and forth. The only thing saving him from being well and truly embarrassed was the pair of binoculars being held out the back window.

“They never quit, do they?”

“Nope,” comes the exasperated reply from between Carolina’s fingers as she covers her face with her hands, “They’re always this annoying.”

\--------------------

Two hours later, the Blues were back to their shop, Church sitting at his desk, Tucker sitting in one of the spare office couches while Wash tended to his bruised eye. Which honestly basically consisted of making sure nothing was broken then throwing an icepack at him and shoving him to the far side of the couch so that he could take up as much room as possible.

“So we have to kill him somehow, right?” Church says finally, breaking the silence.

“Or you could respect your sister’s decision?” Wash adds helpfully, and the other two make equally displeased scoffing noises.

“There’s no way we can let a babe like Church’s sister date a fucking nerd,” Tucker declares in his “duh, Wash, isn’t it so obvious?” voice that literally everyone was sick to death of hearing.

“Especially not a fucking _red_ nerd,” Church agrees.

“Oh man, it’s good to see you two finally coming together and bonding about something,” Wash rolls his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand.

“Bow chicka bow wow,” Tucker says, seemingly on reflex, and Wash sighs again and his eyes continue to roll a groove in his skull.

“Can you…hey, can you call up that crazy chick you used to bang?” Church asks, without a shred of tact or manners. “Maybe she’d be up for murdering him for us.”

“The bottle-blonde one, kinda heavy?” Tucker says, in some sort of attempt to…Wash isn’t even sure what he’s trying to do, but it for sure isn’t working.

“Who else would I be fucking talking about?” Church replies, his voice practically dripping with vitriol. “You’ve only snagged like, two chicks ever.”

“Shut the fuck up. Also nah, the only thing she’s capable of murdering is my dick. And maybe a popsicle that one time.”

“Well fuck me then,” Church huffs, tossing something in Tucker’s general direction to precede the inevitable insufferable comments. “We need to come up with an actual plan, then.”

In the second it takes him to finish that sentence, there’s a huge crash downstairs, the sound of glass shattering and something heavy hitting the ground. Oh, and there’s also a high pitched scream, similar to a parakeet getting caught in a dishwasher. There’s the unmistakable sound of three people all yelling “What the fuck!” in unison, and then all bolting for the stairs at once. By the time they manage to cram themselves down the narrow stairwell, the problem seems to have already resolved itself.

Caboose is dusting glass off of the most familiar member of Red Team. All at once, Wash notices the broken skylight, pieces of which are scattered all across the floor. Church notices the car that Caboose was working on, the hood severely dented in a suspiciously Donut-shaped way, and not the fucking breakfast pastry. Tucker notices the fact that the fucking Red that has somehow managed to fall right into their fucking laps is clinging to Caboose like his life fucking depends on it, even though he’s not injured at all, and that Caboose is looking back at him like he puts the fucking sun in the sky and oh no, oh no, oh _no_. He taps Church on the shoulder and then suddenly both of them are hyper aware of the fact that suddenly Donut trying to constantly break into their shop wasn’t just to be an asshole, there was an ulterior motive.

“Caboose, what the fuck happened!” Church yells, loud enough to bring down the last bit of remaining glass from the skylight and startle a nearby bird.

“Mister McMuffin fell through our skylight because he said he wanted to ask me to go get food with him for lunch and you all had said no, so he tried to climb down the roof and fell into my arms.”

“Well, more directly on top of you than anything,” Donut corrects him, and Wash whispers an almost inaudible “don’t you fucking dare” in Tucker’s general direction.

“But now instead of going to a nice lunch with pancakes and waffles and other good lunch food, we have to go to the hospital instead to make sure that Mister Buttercrust didn’t break anything,” Caboose continues happily, as if he wasn’t just cut off midsentence.

“I think he’s more brain damaged now than he was five minutes ago, and that was already pretty fucking bad,” Church whispers to Wash, putting a hand up to cover his mouth so that the Red couldn’t see what he was saying. “Alright, get the fuck out then,” he says, full volume this time. “Go to the hospital or wherever, just don’t stay here.”

The air of smug superiority basically cascading off of Donut was only made worse by the fact that Caboose actually picked him up and carried him daintily out the door towards his car.

“I’m losing my entire team to the fucking Reds,” Church groans, before shooting Tucker and Wash both the sharpest look they’d ever seen. “You fuckers aren’t going anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's a bonus chapter to get this up and running tbh :3c


	3. Carolina Owns At Mario Party

“Can I get you anything, like, uh, like a drink or something?” Simmons stutters from behind the couch. Carolina waves her hand noncommittally before turning her attention back to the game of Mario Party that she was currently _destroying_ Grif at.

“No thanks. Maybe you can get your friend an icepack for his bruised ego, though,” she says, smirking as she gets a fifth free star, putting her 3 stars ahead of the AI in second, and _4_ stars ahead of Grif.

“Hey, fuck you. Game’s fucking rigged, and you’re a stupid cheater, so it’s fine. Whatever,” he says, then clarifies, “I’m not gonna be bitter about it,” in the bitterest possible tone.

Simmons shuffles around some more, eventually going into the kitchen to try to get a glass of water, and managing to drop the entire filter pitcher onto the tile floor. Carolina pauses the game, uncontested by Grif, who’s been scrolling idly through something on his phone since he passed the point where there was literally no way he could win, and walks into the kitchen and right into the middle of a huge puddle.

“Hey, are you alright?” she asks, stepping carefully through to the other side where Simmons is standing, almost seemingly stock still with the weirdest mix of expressions on his face. He snaps out of it when she puts a comforting hand on his shoulder, his face then turning a shade of lightish red.

“Yeah, I…I’m fine, don’t worry about it,” he says placatingly. Carolina just gives him an “I’m not falling for that” look and he sighs.

“I’m just…Grif is an asshole, and I told him _not_ to be an asshole tonight, because I wanted you to have a good time hanging out, and he was an asshole anyway. So I’m just, I’m nervous, okay?”

“Simmons, I deal with my brother and his idiot friends all day, I can handle just about anything Grif can throw at me. Literally and figuratively.” She pulls one of his hands away from his side, lacing her fingers with his and leaning in to kiss him. Before she can actually do so, Grif makes a noise and slams his phone down on the couch with a groan.

“Sarge is upping our hours. A-fucking-gain,” he yells into the kitchen, oblivious to anything but his own complaints. Carolina lets her hand drop back to her side and takes a halfstep back. “He’s complaining about the fucking Santa Fe again, but I still don’t know how to fix the rpm gauge on that piece of shit. I’ve tried almost fucking everything and it’s still busted. Imports, man. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.”

“Have you tried looking for a broken wheel speed sensor?” Carolina asks, hopping up to sit on the counter, her legs dangling over the edge, shoes clacking softly against the cabinets. Simmons just stands there awkwardly for a second, trying to find some way to recover from what just happened. “I know some of the time it’s that, but it might also be a, uh, fuck, what’s it called, the one that’s external and senses engi-“

Before she can finish her sentence, Simmons cuts her off by pressing his lips to hers, one hand going up to cup her jaw, the other on top of hers on the countertop. And, somewhat to his surprise, Carolina kisses him back, almost harder than he’d started off with. She puts her free hand on his shoulder, pulling him even closer to her and pressing her knees into his hips.

Grif, seemingly realizing that the person he was talking to has just _stopped_ talking midsentence, actually looks up from his phone and into the kitchen and makes a noise halfway between a startled dog and an especially angry wasp’s nest. Carolina pulls away for a second, flips him the bird, and then goes right back to what she was doing.

A second later, the pair in the kitchen hear the front door slam shut, if only vaguely in the background.

\-----------------------------------------

Wash’s phone rings at somewhere past midnight, waking him up from the first good night’s sleep he’d had in almost a month. He barely has the patience to pick up the damn thing, and almost doesn’t, except for the concern somewhere in the back of his head that it might be the hospital calling about Caboose. He regretted ever agreeing to be his goddamn emergency contact. The second he picks up, without even being given the chance to speak, and hears Tucker’s annoying voice, he regrets ever waking up in the first place.

“Is your phone in your back pocket, because that ass is calling me,” the voice on the phone says, obviously very drunk and stuttering.

“Tucker, what the fuck,” is all he can even think to respond with. The other side of the call goes quiet, save for a ruffling noise that sounds suspiciously like someone pulling on a pair of pants.

“Shit, I fuckin’…I called the wrong person,” he eventually manages to stammer.

“Uh-huh. I’m sure.”

“Listen, fuck you,” Tucker replies, seemingly content to leave it at that before continuing suddenly, “I met some chick at a bar earlier and her name starts with an A, and your name in my phone starts with an A. It’s an easy mistake to make, man.”

“My name doesn’t start with an A, Tucker.”

“Yeah, well, I have you saved under ‘Asshole from Work’, so your name _does_ start with A, idiot,” he replies, in about as self-righteous a tone as a blackout drunk person can achieve.

“Whatever. Your pickup lines are terrible anyway. Like, seriously, you were gonna _call_ her, _on the phone_ , and ask if she had a phone in her pocket? What the fuck dude.”

“Shut the fuck up, I don’t come into your fuckin’ house and call you out on your shitty cooking, so don’t come into my house and ride my dick about my great lines.”

“First of all, my cooking is fine, asshole. Second of all, I don’t want to be anywhere near your dick, even in a fucking metaphorical sense.” Wash punctuates his sentence with a disgusted gagging noise to twist the knife he knew he’d just stabbed Tucker’s ego with.

“Hey, fuck you, my dick is fucking fantastic. Half the girls in this town would be all over me if-“

“If they could get past your shitty personality? Yeah, I’m sure. Have fun with that girl, Tucker, and don’t be late for work,” Wash says, practically slamming his phone back onto his nightstand after he hangs up. For some reason that entire conversation had just rubbed him the wrong way. He could almost hear Tucker’s stupid voice in his head making a quip about that choice of words. God, he wasn’t even safe in his own fucking head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's another chapter for ya'll, since my friend that beta'ed this for me is afk and they're like, 85% of my impulse control tbh (ps, the original pickup line that i wanted to use for this chapter but ended up scrapping was "Hey girl, are you Colombian coffee? 'Cause I'm thinking mount-n-groan." its funny because colombian coffee is grown in the mountains. jokes are still just as funny when you explain them, right?)


	4. If You Can't Stand the Heat

The first thing Wash hears when he walks into work the next morning is “there’s no way you scored with that girl.” And then suddenly he knows it’s gonna be one of _those_ mornings. Those mornings where he’s forced to listen to Tucker brag about the chick he picked up last night and how hot she was and blah blah blah, until he wanted to scream. And the fact that this time it’s probably _true_ is somehow making it all the more annoying.

He almost makes it all the way to the stairs before Church calls out “Hey, Wash! Get the fuck over here for a second!” and he has no choice but to begrudgingly comply. Church and Tucker are sequestered in one corner of the shop, across from where Caboose is hammering the dent out of a sedan hood. Tucker is sitting on one side of the half raised lift, right next to the front end of a shitty Corolla that was still missing its front tires since their shipment of ceramic brake pads hadn’t quite come in yet. The smug look on his face, combined with the complete lack of even the slightest hangover is enough to annoy Wash even before he opens his mouth.

“Tucker says he picked up a girl at a bar last night, but I’m seriously not buying it,” Church says flippantly, making some sort of weird dismissive hand gesture.

“C’mon, Wash, help me out here.”

“I mean, it’s probably true,” Wash admits, taking at least a small bit of solace in the look of complete and utter shock on Church’s face. “This asshole drunk dialed me last night with some lame pickup line meant for some girl.”

“And it worked too. Well, not that exact one, I used a different one. I’m not a _complete_ idiot.”

“Yes. Yes you are.”

“Well, I kinda am. But still.”

“I’m still not buying it, dude, for all I know you paid Wash off. And plus, there’s _no girl on Earth_ that would ever sleep with you. Ever,” Church adds, for entirely unnecessary emphasis.

“Oh yeah?” Tucker asks, with all the confidence of a poker player with a full house, before hopping down off of the lift and reaching back to try to lift up the back of his shirt. His arms just barely don’t reach, and after watching him struggle for a solid ten seconds, Wash finally takes pity on him and just lifts it for him.

“Okay, so you got clawed by some sort of raccoon,” Church says dismissively, looking at the parallel scratches down Tucker’s back before he swats Wash’s hand away and lets his shirt fall back into place. “I don’t see what that proves.”

“Nah, man. Latin girls are just freaky like that. Thank god for the Caribbean,” Tucker says with such a level of pride that Wash almost feels physically sick.

“You’re fucking disgusting, you know that?” he says out loud, almost without meaning to.

“What, just cause I catch more tail than you? Dude if that makes me disgusting then whatever, I’m down for it.”

“No, it’s ‘cause you talk about women like they’re deli meat and it’s gross, dude, what the fuck.”

“What? Aw, c’mon man, I’ve been cutting way down on that shit recently, give me some credit on that one,” Tucker replies, actually sounding a little bit hurt.

“Yeah, what the fuck is with you today?” Church says, through some miracle of divine intervention deciding to side with Tucker of all people. “You’re on a fucking warpath, you walked in like the fucking Italian mob was after you, are you havin’ a moment or somethin’?”

“I’m fine, don’t worry about it, I just want to get back to work, alright?” Wash replies, storming off to the office before either of them can make another insufferable comment.

\------------------------------------------

Simmons wakes up to the annoying electronic screeching of his alarm clock, and without even looking, smacks the snooze button.

“Thank god, that thing is loud as hell,” comes a sleepy and somewhat croaky voice from beside him, and he looks over to see Carolina, her hair actually down for once, and nearly cascading over the pillows. And she looks, god, she looks beautiful, and Simmons can feel his face start to heat up just from taking one glance. And then she laughs, just a little, and for the first time in his life, a girl is laughing at him and it’s not the end of the world. Huh.

“You’re adorable when you’re flustered, y’know,” she says softly, before giving him a quick kiss on the cheek and shifting over, getting up and stretching her arms. “I gotta get ready for work, is it okay if I borrow a sweatshirt and take a quick shower before I go?”

“Y-yeah, sure.” Carolina smiles, before shutting the door to the bathroom and starting the shower. The door cracks open a minute later, and she pokes her head out, seemingly deciding if she wants to say something or not.

“I mean, if you wanted to save water maybe you could…maybe…”

“Oh, I’ll uh, I’ll be there in a minute?” Simmons responds, and the smirk on her face before she closes the door instantly becomes the greatest thing he’s ever seen in his entire life.

“I have to be dead,” he says, to no one in particular, putting an arm over his eyes to block out the sunlight filtering in through the curtains. “I’m dead and this is Heaven, that’s the only way to explain this.”

He rolls over, getting his phone off the nightstand and seeing a whopping 8 unread messages.

Grif: I don’t care if you bang your girlfriend in the kitchen, but if either of you eat my breadsticks we’re gonna have to have a talk.

Grif: Is it safe to come back now?

Grif: Hello?

Grif: Alright, fuck you guys then. I’m seeing if Donut’s home to let me crash on his couch.

Grif: And if not, then I still have that spare key he gave me for “emergencies”, and this is a goddamn emergency if I’ve ever seen one.

Grif: ABORT MISSION, THE STUPID TALL BLUE IS HERE AND THERE’S SUSPICIOUS NOISES COMING FROM THE OTHER ROOM.

Grif: I’m gonna end up sleeping on the goddamn street at this point, what the fuck dude.

Grif: You’ve single handedly ruined my life, Simmons. Ruined it.

“Yep, definitely dead, and this is definitely Heaven.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to update this on Friday, so I'm putting up two chapters today to make up for it, sorry 'bout that


	5. The Blues Honestly Need to Start a Swear Jar

Carolina walked through the door of her idiot brother’s shop, and noticed that everything was just the slightest bit off. For starters, Tucker was actually _working_ for once, welding away at the catalytic converter of some busted Chevy, his stupid cyan welder’s mask blazing with yellow sparks. Caboose was nowhere to be found, or even heard, which was strange. Usually his voice would ring out through the shop whenever she showed up. Wash was also nowhere to be found, until she looked around for a second, noticing a pair of legs poking out from under the side of a minivan. She climbed the stairs to the main office, finding Church apparently taking a lunch break, the surface of his desk pretty much covered with food.

“What the fuck is that?” he asks, putting down the sandwich he was about to bite into and point at her incredulously.

“The fuck is what?”

“Your fucking jacket. That’s not yours,” he says. Carolina looks down, taking a quick glance at the maroon sweatshirt that was just a touch too big for her. She’d had to roll up the sleeves once to get it to fit properly. It still vaguely smelled like the shot of cinnamon whiskey that she’d spilled on it the night before.

“Yeah, what does it matter?” she challenges, before Church backs down, mumbling to himself. “Anyway, I’m here for my cut for the week.”

“We do that direct deposit shit now, dude, you already have your fucking money. Take your boyfriend out for a nice dinner or whatever.”

“Okay, what is your fucking problem with Simmons?” Carolina finally breaks, slamming her hand down on Church’s desk hard enough to make him jump.

“He’s a fucking Red! And…and uh…dude, back me up here,” he says, calling out to Tucker, who’d come upstairs to get a quart of motor oil from the cabinet and very obviously didn’t want to be included in whatever conversation was happening. He sighed, the scowl on his face deepening.

“What the fuck does it matter, you’re not gonna change her mind,” he says with a finality that neither of the Church siblings were used to hearing from him, before he shrugged and hurried back down the stairs before they could drag him back into the conversation.

“I can’t believe this. The one time I ask him to back me up on something is the one time he decides not to try to get into your pants. What the fuck is the world coming to?” Church yelled, before dragging his hands over his face in frustration.

“Maybe he’s finally giving up. _Maybe_ he’s actually capable of being happy for another human being, asshole,” Carolina nearly hisses in her brother’s direction. She’s honestly not even sure what she’s still doing here, but this is what’s happening now, and she has some deep-seeded desire to make Church see her point of view. Like, goddamnit, she was _happy_ for once, why couldn’t he just be happy for her?

“You know what, fuck you, okay?” Church yells, and Carolina storms out, nearly shoulder-checking Wash on her way to the stairs. He just stands there dumbstruck for a second before Church refocuses his anger on him and yells “What the fuck are you looking at!?” before sinking down in his chair, laying his head on his arms.

“I, uh…” Wash starts, before Church cuts him off again.

“So when are you and Tucker just gonna get this passive aggressive shit out of your fucking systems and just bang already? Because I swear to god, if he ends up dating a Red too I’m gonna kill both of you for being so fucking stubborn.”

Wash is fucking dumbstruck for the first time in his life. He wants to yell something clever back, but he honestly knows somewhere deep down that Church isn’t entirely wrong, as much as it pains him to admit that. He settles for just upturning the cup of ice from Church’s lunch over his head and heading back downstairs before he can throw anything in retaliation.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

Wash’s phone goes off at quarter past one, and he picks it up without even looking at the caller ID, muttering a sleepy “Hello?” into the receiver.

“Wash? It’s Tucker.”

“Okay, great. Why are you calling me at one am?”

“Church says Caboose is missing,” Tucker says, his voice actually sounding half concerned. Wash sits up, fully paying attention to the conversation now. “He wasn’t at work today, and apparently he wasn’t at his house. Church called Carolina who asked her boyfriend and his roommate if they might know where he is, but they had no clue either. The fat annoying one said that he saw him with the blonde one the other day,” Tucker stops momentarily to make a disgusted noise, “or heard them together, I guess. Gross. Anyway, the blonde one is apparently missing too.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“Church wants to have a meeting about it I guess? Hold on,” there’s the sound of some shuffling, of fingers tapping on cellphone glass. “What the fuck. Apparently he wants it to be at my place.”

“Right now? It’s one in the fucking morning!”

“I fucking guess! Wait, he says that we can’t open tomorrow anyway unless we get Caboose back. So that’s fine I guess.”

“Ugh, you guys are fucking killing me. I’m gonna be in an early grave at 30 if this shit keeps up. Text me your address and I’ll be there.” Wash hangs up the phone before Tucker can say anything else. God, why was this shop such a fucking mess? And why did he still care, even after all this time of being so fucking done with the entire thing?  It’s a fucking enigma, even to him, even now. He sighs and pulls on a sweatshirt and a pair of shoes before looking for his keys. Maybe he’d pick up a coffee from the 7/11 down the street, and one of those tooth-rotting energy drinks for Tucker. Church could just go fuck himself, the guy could buy himself his own damn coffee. Served him right for calling a meeting at one in the fucking morning, like seriously, who does that?


	6. Underwire is Actually Really Sharp

Wash knocked on the door of the address Tucker had sent him, only having to wait for a second before the door swung open. Tucker was standing at the door in nothing but a pair of plaid pajama pants, the bags under his eyes immediately noticeable. Wash manages to tear his gaze away and to the rest of the apartment as he was led in. He’d imagined a huge mess, with laundry everywhere and plates stacked on every surface, but this place was actually clean? There were a few posters hanging on the walls, and the couches looked about as old as he was, but it wasn’t bad.

“What’s that?” Tucker asks, closing the door behind him and pointing to the bag in his hand.

“Oh, uh, just some energy drinks. I figured you might want some,” Wash explains, handing it over.

“Oh, thanks dude,” Tucker replies, actually seeming somewhat taken aback by that answer. He takes the bag from him and head for the kitchen, ostensibly to put them in the fridge, and calls out “You can sit down anywhere, man. Church is running a bit late because Carolina is grilling him about something, I guess. He wasn’t really clear about it.”

Wash takes a seat on the nearest couch, immediately regretting it when something jabs him in the leg from between the cushions. He reaches down, pulling a white and black polka dotted bra up from under the seat.

“Shit, so that’s where it went,” Tucker says casually as he walks back into the room. Wash tosses it at him and he catches it, deftly diverting it onto a laundry bin full of his own clothes in the corner without even looking, as if it were no big deal. He flops down onto the sofa at the opposite end, propping his feet on it and cracking open one of the energy drinks Wash had brought him. He drains the entire thing without taking a single breath, before setting the can on the bartop behind the couch.

“So uh, before Church gets here…what the fuck exactly is your damage?” he asks casually, as if it’s a simple question.

“Ex-fucking-scuse me? What the hell did you just say to me?” Wash replies, annoyance clear in his voice.

“You fucking heard me. You’ve been a huge dick these past couple months and I’m fucking sick of it! Like, yesterday was the fucking worst, I hate working with you when you’re angry!” Tucker says, starting to get louder and louder as he keeps talking.

“You hate working in general!” Wash yells back, actually getting up to scream at him. Tucker gets up in response, squaring up with him despite being a few inches shorter. “And you’re a complete asshole too!”

“Yeah, I know that, but not to you! Or at least I try not to be, like what the fuck!” Tucker says, poking Wash harshly in the chest, in the process getting within half a step of him. Even though they’re arguing, Wash can’t help but feel his heart jump, just a little.

“Try not to be? What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means I’m trying to be _nice_ to you. And you keep spitting in my fucking face whenever I try,” Tucker says, not yelling anymore. He actually sounds disappointed when he says “Fuck me, right?”

For half a second Wash has the urge to say “I’m trying”, until he sees the look on Tucker’s face change between six different things in a second, and he realizes that he’d accidentally actually said it out loud. He takes another step forward, his hands going up to either side of Wash’s face before he smashes their lips together hungrily, as if he’s been waiting to do that for years. After almost a solid minute, Tucker breaks it off, pulling away and breathing heavily.

“Dude, you’re the fucking worst,” he says, arms still laid over Wash’s shoulders.

“If anyone’s the worst it’s you,” is all Wash can think to reply. His brain is nearly melted, there’s almost no thoughts running through it besides “holy shit, I want more of whatever that was.”

“Nice comeback, asshole,” Tucker snickers, before moving in to kiss him again. He moves one hand to the small of Wash’s back, pulling him closer, and the other he slips into the back pocket of his jeans. Wash loses himself for a second again, and then he’s moving, Tucker pushing him back toward a hallway, one hand on his chest, the other moving to unbuckle his belt.

\--------------------------

Wash wakes up the next morning to the sound of a smoke detector going off somewhere in his general vicinity before hearing a noise suspiciously similar to someone breaking a smoke detector with a hockey stick. His head is fuzzy, made even fuzzier by the sound of rain outside the window. He glances at the nightstand, seeing that, in some miraculous show of good luck, his phone managed to get there at some point last night. He picks it up, mentally wincing when he sees the time is half past noon. And for some reason his background is changed. What is that ev-

Oh. That’s what that is. Okay.

He unlocks the phone, opening his messages to be bombarded by a huge mess of notifications from last night.

Church: dude are you already at Tucker’s? the doors locked and no ones answering

Church: hes not answering his phone either

Church: I mean I know I shouldnt be worried but Caboose isnt answering either and were out on a witch hunt for him so

Church: and now you’re not answering. great.

Church: Im gonna check the side window and see if I see anything

Church: SAW TOO MUCH

Church: I fucking hate both of you I feel like I need to bleach my brain now

Church: also Im buying Tucker better curtains for the sake of his neighbors

Carolina: Church is blowing up my phone right now, what did you idiots do?

Carolina: Each other, apparently. Jesus Christ, on the list of things I didn’t need to know that was probably right up there at the top.

Church: Caboose is fine by the way. apparently he was on a plane? I dont fucking know ask Carolina

Church: Im going to bed and hoping I die in my sleep so I dont have to remember what I saw today

Carolina: Simmons’s friend Donut apparently took Caboose on vacation to fucking Florida. They’re both fine, I guess? Not that you’re at all concerned right now, but still.

Carolina: Simmons wants me to append the fact that I said he was friends with Donut. Since apparently I’m dating an 8th grader who can’t just admit that he’s friends with the weird kid that huffs glue.

609-579-1233: I just want to clarify that Donut and I aren’t friends. At all.

Caboose: Washington! Church told Ms. Carolina to tell me to tell you that me and mister Eclair are perfectly fine and in the Florida airport right now!! We will be back in a few days so please do not worry!!

“What the fuck.”


	7. Concealer Would Have Been Less Obvious

Wash showed up to work the next day in a fancy turtleneck, the kind you’d wear to Christmas dinner, with a grease-covered work hoodie thrown haphazardly over it in probably the worst looking combination you’ve ever seen. To make matters worse, the sweater was tucked into his goddamn pants, which made him look even more like a child that’s about to get beat up on the recess yard than he had been a second ago. Tucker showed up to work in a tanktop and jeans, much to Wash’s chagrin.

The second Wash walked through the door he could hear Church all but sprint for the stairs, slamming the door at the top.

“What’s his problem?” Wash asks, setting his bag down by the door.

“I dunno,” Tucker replies, looking up from the busted air compressor he was fixing for just a second, “He said something about not being able to look us both in the eyes ever again earlier. Not quite sure why.”

“Oh, you didn’t get the full rundown of the nonsense that happened?”

“No, he just sent me a bunch of texts asking me where I was and if I was being murdered or something, and then hasn’t texted me since.”

“I think his exact words were ‘I’m buying Tucker better curtains’,” Wash says sarcastically, waiting the few seconds he knows it’ll take to fully process.

“Oh shit, yeah, that might be why he’s acting all weird.” He takes a second, then yells in the direction of the stairs “D’ya get a good show at least, you fucking freak?”

The only response is a muffled noise that sounds vaguely like the words “fuck you”. Tucker sighs, then looks back over at Wash.

“What the fuck are you even wearing?”

“A sweater.”

“You look stupid and you’re going to overheat in that.”

“It’s better than having everything on display for the entire fucking world to see.”

“Dude, who the fuck even _cares_?” Tucker says, sounding entirely unimpressed with Wash’s sense of modesty.

“Well it’s too late for me to change now,” Wash tries to reason, trying to pass by Tucker. He gets stopped, however, by Tucker stepping in front of him and ardently not letting him pass.

“No it’s not, just take off the sweater and wear the hoodie.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Dude, don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not being stupid, you’re being stupid.”

“Great comeback, now give me the sweater,” Tucker says, rolling his eyes.

“What the fuck? No, I’m not doing that,” Wash says, trying to push past again. Tucker stops him again, this time actively untucking the bottom of the turtleneck and trying to pull it up and over Wash’s head, sweatshirt be damned.

“Ow, hey stop!” Wash yells, trying to back away, and thus only getting himself more stuck.

“You weren’t complaining about me undressing you yesterday, so just hold still!” Tucker says, finally managing to get both the sweater and hoodie over Wash’s head. Wash just stands there, looking way too much like a cat that’s just had water poured on it.

“That fucking sucked,” he says, snatching his hoodie back and zipping it up as soon as he had it on.

“Yeah, but now you won’t die from heatstroke. Which would fucking suck,” Tucker says, before giving Wash a quick kiss and going back to fixing the air compressor, leaving Wash’s sweater on the table next to him.

“You fucking suck,” Wash replies, heading up to the office, barely able to keep himself from smiling like an idiot.

\---------------------------------------------

“Simmons!” Sarge barked from the doorway to his office across the shop. “Get over here and explain to me how you ended up as the biggest traitor of all of them!”

Simmons sighed, hurrying over to finally face the music. He’d been able to pay off Grif to keep him quiet about everything, but apparently someone else had found out. Probably Donut, if he had to take a wild guess. When he entered Sarge’s office, the boss was sitting at his desk, hands folded like some sort of cartoon villain. Lopez was perched on a nearby filing cabinet smoking a cigarette.

“You uh, you wanted to see me sir?” Simmons manages to stutter, before Sarge gives him the most scathing look he’d ever been subjected to in his life.

“Lopez here tells me that you’re dating one of those Blue bastards from across the street.”

“No el que desde el otro lado de la calle , la que es _propietaria_ de la tienda al otro lado de la calle,”* Lopez adds, helpfully.

“I don’t care if she owns the _entire_ street! She’s a dirty Blue, and that’s all that matters,” Sarge replies, punctuating his sentence by hitting his desk hard enough to send a pen flying off of it.

“Sí, apuesto a que está muy sucia,”** Lopez says, smirking, and then makes a noise similar to a cat’s growl, which, while Simmons doesn’t understand, he gets the basic gist of.

“Hey, don’t talk about my girlfriend like that,” Simmons says, trying to seem as threatening as possible.

“Yeah Lopez, that’s not how we talk about women here in America,” Sarge says, to Simmons’s complete and utter surprise, both because he just defended a Blue, and because he’s completely and totally wrong about how most guys treat women. The last bit isn’t actually all that surprising.

Lopez just sighs and says “¿cómo es que sólo hablan español cuando estamos en la cama?”***

“Now’s not the time for that, now’s the time for figuring out how the dirty Blue seduced my best worker.”

“She didn’t _seduce_ me, we met at the DMV and started dating, and it just so happens that she owns the place across the street, sir.”

“That’s what she wants you to think, when in actuality she lured you away with her feminine wiles!”

“Yeah, the feminine wiles of being nice to me and listening when I talk? You might want to give those a try,” Simmons says sarcastically, before immediately regretting it. What had gotten into him, there was no way he could talk to Sarge like that! And from the shocked expressions on both Sarge and Lopez’s faces, they weren’t expecting it either.

“Wow, el niño perra finalmente creció unas bolas.”****

“He certainly has. As much as I hate to admit it, she does seem to be doing wonders for your confidence.” Sarge is actually quiet for a second, seemingly thinking about something, before saying, “Well, I guess she’s technically not a _full_ Blue. So it’s not as terrible as you hooking up with one of the other ones. Especially the tall one that yells a lot. His voice drives me up the goddamn wall.” Simmons doesn’t bother clarifying which of the four tall idiots that liked to yell he was talking about, because frankly he just wanted to get back to work at this point.

“You can go now, son,” Sarge says casually, seemingly not noticing the dumbstruck expression on Simmons’s face as he hurries back to what he was working on. “Son”, huh? He could get used to that.

Lopez just sighs and says “No estoy adoptando ese niño cuando nos casemos.”+

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you that don't speak spanish, here's some translations!  
> *: "She doesn't work at the place across the street, she owns the place across the street."  
> **: "Yeah, I bet she's real dirty."  
> ***: "How come you only speak Spanish when we're in bed?"  
> ****: "Wow, the bitch boy finally grew some balls."   
> +: "I'm not adopting him when we get married."


	8. Contractual Obligations

“Oh my gosh, it’s so good to see you!” Carolina enthuses, enveloping Kimball in the world’s tightest hug as soon as she steps out of her car.

“Good to see you too, Church,” Kimball laughs, giving Carolina a punch on the shoulder just like back in their service days.

“Ugh, _please_ don’t call me that. My idiot little brother claimed our last name as his nickname while I was gone and apparently it stuck.” She scoffs before continuing “And there’s no way I’m gonna be associated with that mess.”

“I mean, I can’t blame the guy. His name is _Leonard_ , would you really want to be known by that?”

“Yeah, well he can take that one up with mom at Thanksgiving, doesn’t mean I have to suffer for his crimes.” Kimball laughs, following Carolina inside as she talks.

“So am I gonna get to meet this guy you’ve been talking so much about while I’m here?” She asks, giggling when Carolina’s face turns a pale shade of red.

“I mean, sure, I guess. We were planning on having a couple drinks at his place later tonight if you wanted to tag along?”

“Sure, that sounds great! Oh, but just so I don’t make an idiot of myself, you have _told_ him right? Like, the big L word?”

Carolina gives her a confused look, before replying “I’m not a lesbian, Kimball.”

“No, not that one,” Kimball responds, rolling her eyes. “For the past two weeks you’ve been messaging me on Skype about how much you _love_ this guy, but like, have you told him that?”

“Well, I mean, I’m sure he knows.”

Kimball gives her a disappointed glance and continues “Seriously, ‘Lina?”

“It’s not easy to work into a conversation, y’know! ‘Hey, do you want pasta for dinner or should we order out again, oh and by the way, I love you.’ Like, I can’t just do that!”

“It absolutely is that easy. That’s what I did when I was still with Maria, back in Basic. You remember that?”

“I remember Maria broke up with you _the day before_ graduation,” Carolina says sarcastically, and Kimball smiles and clamps her hand onto her shoulder.

“You better watch it, Church. I didn’t get this third-degree black belt to just sit there and take this kind of stuff,” she jokes.

\-------------------------------------------------------

“Simmons, I don’t want your stupid girlfriend bringing people I don’t know to the house,” Grif complains, being mostly ignored, as always.

“Why not? It’s just the one girl, what harm can that do?”

“Uh, well for one, it means I have to wear pants all night.”

“You were going to wear pants all night anyway.”

“Well yeah, but now I’m basically _contractually obligated_ to wear pants or else I look like a creep,” Grif clarifies.

“Listen, Kimball’s only in town for the weekend and Carolina wants to spend as much time as she can with her, so what am I gonna do, cancel plans with my girlfriend just so that you can have the choice between wearing pants or not?” Simmons replies, idly scrolling through something on his phone and only really paying half attention to the conversation.

“Uh, yeah?” Grif asks, in a genuinely confused tone. “Whatever happened to ‘bros before hoes’, Simmons, huh?”

“First of all, don’t call her a ‘hoe’. Second of all, ‘bros before hoes’ stopped being a thing the second you hit on Katie Jensen.”

“Seriously?! That was eight years ago, you’re holding a grudge for that long?”

Before Simmons can reply, the doorbell rings, and there’s an almost too polite knock on the door.

“Don’t worry, his royal highness, I’ll get it,” Grif says, after he realizes that Simmons isn’t going to get it.

“Fucking asshole,” he mutters to himself as he undoes the locks, “what a-“

He opens the door, expecting to see Carolina there, and instead is faced with the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen in his life. She’s taller than him by a good half a foot, even in flat top sneakers, her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail with a few loose strands hanging off the sides of her bangs and framing her face. She’s wearing a short sleeved dress, the sleeves of which seem about ready to burst as soon as she flexes her arms. She could probably kill him with her bare hands if she wanted to. And then she notices the open door and turns in his direction, a smile on her face and holy fuck, Grif thinks that this might be what love at first sight is like.

“Carolina’s still down at the car, she forgot her keys. You’re not a pale ginger, so I’m assuming you must be the roommate she mentioned. Dexter, right?”

“Y-you can just call me Grif,” he manages to stutter, stepping aside to let her into the apartment. She immediately walks over to Simmons, leaning over the back of the couch to do so. Grif barely hears what they’re saying, since he’s currently stuck between trying not to be a creep by staring at her ass, and _really_ wanting to. He’s actually surprised when Carolina taps him on the shoulder, giving him a confused look.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“God is testing me, Carolina. Fucking testing me,” he mutters, before stalking off to the kitchen.

“Well okay then,” Carolina says to herself in that “I’m not sure why that just happened, but it sure did just” tone. She closes the door behind her and sits down on the couch next to Simmons, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.

“I’m gonna go get a glass of water,” Kimball says, promptly excusing herself from the conversation. Simmons takes the opportunity to pull Carolina sideways into his lap, both of them laughing a bit when she accidentally knocks his glasses askew while trying to put her arms around his neck.

“You know I love you, right, Carolina?” he says suddenly, and Carolina’s eyes widen in surprise.

“Yeah, of course. I…I love you too, Simmons,” she finally manages to stammer out. Simmons breathes a sigh of relief, laughing and leaning his head against Carolina’s shoulder.

“Kimball said you probably wouldn’t say it unless I said it first, so…” he trails off, both of them acutely aware of how she’d just manipulated them as easily as anything.

“I’m gonna kill her,” Carolina jokes, laughing to herself.

“Don’t worry, I’ll visit you in prison. Our state does the whole ‘conjugal visits’ thing, right?” Carolina snorts, and slaps him lightly on the shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So remember how I tried to have a set update schedule for once? Yeah, fuck schedules tbh.


	9. Putting Tactics to Good Use

“There’s no way Master Chief is gonna beat Mako Mori in a fight,” Kimball drunkenly yells, while Carolina regrets mentioning the fact that there was still some Fireball left from last time. “You can eat a bag of dicks if you think that.”

“No, I’m agreeing with you!” Grif yells back, equally as drunkenly. “Mako would kick his fucking ass, no question.”

“See, Carolina?” Kimball says proudly, as if that proves her entire point. “And to think, out of this fuckin’ combo you picked the lame one,” she says, moreso just as part of her thought process bypassing her mental filter. Thanks, alcohol.

“Yeah, well, the ‘lame one’ is the one that agreed to be our designated driver, so maybe you should be nice,” she laughs, as Kimball’s face turns a shade of bright red when she realizes that she said that last thing out loud.

“Yeah, well, ‘s probably ‘cause he can’t hold his liquor. You ever heard of an Irishman that can’t hold his liquor?” she asks, turning to Grif.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of exactly one, and his name is Dick ‘Crybaby’ Simmons,” Grif says sarcastically, and Kimball tries to give him a hive five and misses spectacularly.

“I’m right here you know,” Simmons says, coming back from the kitchen, car keys in hand.

“Yeah, I know. I just really don’t care what you think,” Grif says, and Kimball laughs again as Carolina rolls her eyes.

“Alright ‘Nessa, it’s time to get you home before you revert back to high school and start hitting on my girlfriends again.” Carolina helps Kimball up, guiding her to the door. “Or in this case, my boyfriend’s roommate, I guess.”

“Hey wait, hold on a second. Just one second, ‘Lina,” Kimball bargains, reaching into her pocket and pulling out her cell phone before tossing it to Grif with somehow perfect aim.

“What’s this for?” he asks, obviously confused, but willing to roll with whatever’s happening.

“I’m gonna leave that here,” Kimball says, some of her words slurring together. “So that I have a reason to come see you tomorrow when I’m not fucking plastered on Fireball.” She tries to do a finger gun salute, but Carolina whisks her out the door before she can actually figure it out.

\------------------------------------------------

The next day, the doorbell rings again, complete with an overly polite knock. Grif is nearly passed out on the couch with the world’s worst hangover, so Simmons gets the door.

“Oh, hey Kimball,” he says, somewhat surprised that she actually showed up herself instead of realizing she’d made a mistake and sending Carolina.

“Hi Simmons! Is Grif here?” she asks, voice airy and free of any indication of a hangover whatsoever.

“Yeah, he’s here. He’s kindof um,” Simmons looks over at the couch, where Grif was laying with a pillow pressed over his eyes and all the lights turned out save for the TV. “Kindof dead right now.”

“No I’m not,” Grif responds, finally seeming to realize that someone else was in the room. He pulls the pillow off his face, wincing in the sudden bright light of the room. He grabs her phone off the coffee table and brings it over to her.

“Thanks for not breaking it,” she jokes, giggling slightly before continuing, “So…I live a few hours from here, a couple states away, actually…” she trails off, and Grif is expecting the easy let down, the ‘so I don’t know if anything would work out’, but to his surprise, she follows up with “But I’ll be back in town a few weeks from now for a welterweight fight I’m promoting, if you maybe wanted to go out for dinner then? And uh, Carolina’s got my phone number already, so you could just get that from her…”

“Yeah, that, that sounds great, Kimball, I-“

“Oh god, only my old squadmates call me Kimball. It’s Vanessa,” she says, smiling almost as an apology for cutting him off midsentence.

“Right, Vanessa. I mean, I’d love to go out sometime. I’ll uh, I guess I’ll text you then?”

“Sounds like a plan to me!” she enthuses, before looking at her watch. “Oh shit, I have to get going if I want to avoid traffic on the freeway.”

“Right, you should probably do that,” Grif says, walking with her to the door, and waving a sortof awkward goodbye as she walked down the hall to her car.

As soon as the door closes, Simmons turns to him from the couch and says “What the actual fuck. How did that manage to work out so well for you? You didn’t even have to try, she was just that into you from the get-go.”

“See, this is where charm comes in, Simmons. If you’re a charming bastard like I am, then you don’t have to try,” Grif says confidently, laying back down on the couch after locking the door.

“Uh-huh. You’re about as charming as a fucking paper bag, dude. That’s actually giving you too much credit, you have about as much charm as a paper bag that’s been rained on and kicked in a gutter.”

“The fact that I just scored a date with a perfect 10 invalidates that statement, and you know it.”

“ _You_ didn’t score a date with a perfect ten, a perfect ten scored a date with you, man.”

“Tomato tomahto, Simmons. Same difference.”

“It’s really not,” Simmons insists, rolling his eyes.

“Dude, if it ends in the same thing then what does it matter who said what?”

“It actually matters a lot! Some people just don’t like being the first ones to say anything, so it means something.”

“Alright, alright, if you’re gonna have a fucking bee in your bonnet about it then fine, whatever, you win.”

There’s a half second pause of silence before Simmons says “I told Carolina that I love her yesterday.”

“Oh, ‘grats, man,” Grif says, suddenly realizing why Simmons had been on edge.

“I said it first. And I thought I was literally gonna die right there.”

“But you didn’t. And now you’ve got a super hot girlfriend that’s actually admitted that she loves you.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Just be happy for yourself for once, man, geez.”


	10. First Names are Serious Business

Two days later, the door to the Blues’ shop bursts open, slamming against the cinderblock wall hard enough to completely crush the door handle and leave a sizable hole in the brickwork. Church and Wash both look up from their work to see Caboose walking into the shop, several shades tanner, and wearing a combination of cargo shorts and a hideous, obviously too small pink aloha shirt over a t-shirt with the word “Florida” emblazoned over a bright green alligator.   
“I am back from the place with all the ocean!” he yells, before walking over to Church and giving him a hug strong enough to force all the air out of his lungs.

“Caboose…stop…” Church manages to wheeze before Wash taps Caboose on the shoulder, distracting him long enough to let Church go.

“Please don’t kill the guy that signs my paycheck,” Wash sighs, before going back to work refitting a new evap valve onto a busted old station wagon.

“We had such a great time! We got on a plane, and then we got thrown off the first plane and had to get on a second plane, and then we went to the beach, and swam in the big ocean, and then we went to the store, and then we went to this fancy hotel, and then we went up to the fancy hotel room and then-“

“Alright, I’m gonna have to stop you right there before shit gets weird,” Church says suddenly. “Tucker told me about the hell the other Red idiot had to go through and I don’t want any part of that.”

“Don’t listen to Church, tell us all about your vacation, Caboose,” Wash says, very obviously trying to instigate and rile Church up, a subtlety which is completely lost on Caboose.

Before he can start talking again, though, Church cuts him off by saying “Don’t listen to Wash, he’s a dick.”

“You are what you eat, I guess,” Tucker says, coming down the stairs with a box of old, to-be-recycled wires in his hands.

“Ugh, don’t remind me. That fucking mental image still haunts my goddamn dreams,” Church says, pushing up his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“You have dreams about me and Wash banging?” Tucker asks incredulously. “That’s fucking weird, dude. I mean, maybe if you were a hot chick or something it’d be alright, but-“

“Tucker.” Wash says harshly, in the tone of a rich soccer mom disciplining someone else’s child.

“David.” Tucker responds in the same tone, this time upping the level of serious by using Wash’s first name.

“Wait, is that your first name? Huh, I never knew that,” Church says, breaking the tension and in the process making Wash _extremely_ confused.

“You sign my paychecks every week, how do you not know that?”

“I don’t know, I just never knew! It’s not like it ever comes up!” Church says, his voice raising as he tries to defend himself.

“Dude, don’t feel too bad. This is just like how he said he didn’t know I was black until like two years ago,” Tucker adds, tossing the box of wires onto the top of a tool box.

“Okay, listen, that’s an easy mistake to make.”

“Church, I am literally so dark that the last time we went to go play laser tag at night you made me wear neon face paint because you said I had an ‘unfair advantage’.”

“I thought you were just really into tanning!”

“You’ve met my parents!”

“I thought you were all just really into tanning! I don’t know!” Church yells in frustration, completely giving up on the entire situation and climbing the stairs to the office, shutting the door at the top.

“…so, then we went to this big water place with a bunch of boats, and-“ Caboose continues, seemingly not even noticing that there was an entire conversation between when he stopped talking and when he started talking again.

\-----------------------------

“Guess who’s baack!” Donut yells, throwing open the door to the Reds’ shop. He’s dressed in the weirdest combination of tiny denim cutoffs and a too big blue sweatshirt, the sleeves of which are so long that they swallow his tiny hands completely, over a shirt that reads “Kennedy Space Center”. He’s greeted by a less than enthusiastic reply of mostly vague noises in his general direction.

“So who wants to hear about my super great vacation?” he asks, apparently not one to just give up so easily.

“Oh, you mean the one you went on without telling us about? And made us worry that you and your little boyfriend over there on the traitor side of the street got kidnapped?” Grif says sarcastically from underneath some sort of white sedan.

“Yeah, that one!”

Grif sighs, before asking “So how was it then?”

“It was great! Caboose and I went to the beach, which actually turned out to be a topless beach because I read the atlas that was in the rental car wrong. And then we found a big fancy hotel to stay at and that was super great. We ended up ordering room service a lot, though, since we didn’t leave the room much…” Donut rambles, before trailing off, seemingly lost in thought for a second. Simmons makes a gagging noise from the passenger’s seat of the car Grif is fixing.

“Can we get the short version without any more mentions of whatever went on at the hotel, please? I’d like to preserve at least some of my innocence,”Grif complains.

“Well, we also went jet skiing, which was fun! I didn’t really think I’d be a fan of water sports, but this weekend really changed my mind!”

There’s a surprised noise from under the car that sounds suspiciously like someone laughing as Donut continues, “Caboose was worried that I’d be too fragile for it, but I can take a lot more punishment than I look like I can!”

At this point, Sarge just closes his office door, 100% done with the conversation.

“And then we also went to the space center, which was cool!” Donut enthuses, “There were huge rockets all over the place!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember when i thought I had enough self control to release chapters on a schedule? yeah, those were good times while they lasted.


	11. It's Quiet Uptown

“Wash, we need to talk,” Tucker says, pulling Wash around the corner as soon as he leaves the stairwell, almost causing him to drop the box of broken caliper parts he was carrying.

“What, what is it? I mean, the fact that you pulled me into the dark space behind the stairs kinda gives me an idea of what you might want, and it would piss Church off immensely, so I’m up for it, but-“

“No, it’s not about-wait what? Well, I mean, whatever I was just about to say can wait, I guess.”

“Wait, that wasn’t what you were- anyway, just…just go back to what you were saying originally.”

“Right, that. Uh, I think it was something about Carolina?” Tucker pauses to think a second, before continuing “Carolina and Church still haven’t stopped being mad at each other. I went to their apartment to drop off something yesterday and it felt like walking into a goddamn brick wall. Like, seriously, you could cut the tension with a knife.”

“They live together? I thought they hated each other?”

“I mean, you don’t have to like someone to live with them. I lived with Caboose for a couple years even though I wanted to set the place on fire every single day just so that I wouldn’t have to live there anymore, but you know how that goes. Like, seriously, one time he managed to spontaneously combust a pumpkin pie in the oven. Who manages to do that? It wasn’t even flammable, it just- anyway, we need to fix Church and Carolina so that Church stops making our lives a living hell.”

“For once, I actually agree with you,” Wash capitulates. “What was your plan?”

“I didn’t have one, I kinda just thought that if I told you then you could come up with one.”

Wash sighs, before rolling his eyes and complaining, “Why did I assume anything different?”

“Oh shut the fuck up. You’re better at planning than me anyway,” Tucker fires back.

“I know, I know. Give me until after lunch and I’ll have something figured out.” Before he can fully turn away, Tucker grabs his arm lightly and pulls him back, a familiar look on his face.

“So, about that misunderstanding earlier…”

“Later. I actually have to get back to work now,” Wash says, walking off toward the other end of the shop, box in hand. He chuckles just slightly to himself when he hears Tucker mutter something that sounds suspiciously like “even when Church isn’t here he still manages to be a fucking cockblock.”

\-------------------------------------------------

“Why do you need me to check your A/C again?” Church asks, as Wash all but pushes him down the hall to his apartment door.

“It’s busted again, and I don’t know what’s wrong with it,” Wash lies through his teeth, unlocking the door and pushing it open, and Church in at the same time, then shutting it quickly behind him.

Carolina glares up at them from the couch, arms folded and looking angrier than Wash has ever seen her. Caboose is in the corner, almost cowering in fear and holding a broomhandle out like a lance.

“What the fuck’s the big idea here?” Church asks when he sees Carolina.

“Yeah, I could say the same thing,” she agrees.

“This is an intervention. You two shouldn’t be as angry with each other as you are, so you’re not leaving this room until you’re back to only hating each other a little,” Wash explains, mentally cursing Tucker for ducking out of the plan at the last minute because ‘there’s no way I’m getting my ass kicked by Carolina, dude. Been there, done that, not going back.’

“We’re not angry with each other, Church is just a little shit that doesn’t like my boyfriend because he works at the shop across the street.”

“I don’t like your boyfriend because he’s a whiny nerd,” Church says with all the vehemence of calling someone an actual slur.

“You take that back,” Carolina says threateningly, getting up and almost looming over Church.

“Or what, you’ll storm out like a fucking child again? Big deal, so I’m fucking broken up about the fact that my sister is abandoning me for a goddamn Red. Whatever.”

“I’m not abandoning you for a Red! The only reason I don’t come to the shop as often is because you’re a piece of shit that won’t stop criticizing me!”

“I only criticize you because I’m scared that you’ll leave again!” Church shouts, and Carolina actually visibly softens, just a little.

“What?”

“When you left for the Marines it fucking sucked. And then you came back, and I thought, ‘oh, cool. Carolina’s back, and we can go back to being a fucking team again, just like when we were little.’ And we were, and then you started dating Simmons and…”Church trails off, seemingly suddenly snapping back to his bitter attitude in a second. “Whatever. Doesn’t matter.”

“And you were scared that I would leave again,” Carolina says, as a statement of fact that she knew Church would never say out loud. She walks forward and wraps her arms around his shoulders, hugging him tightly. He panics for a second, before awkwardly just letting his arms stay at his sides. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, it’s my fault for being fucking weak.”

“You’re not weak, Church,” Carolina says, before changing the hug she has Church in into more of a shoulder-hold, and tousling his hair while he struggled to get away.

“Hey, stop! Goddamnit, stop using height to your advantage, that’s so not fair!”

“You’re just like dad, you know that?” she says, smiling and letting Church go. He angrily fixes his clothes and his hair, glaring at her the entire time.

“And you sound just like mom,” he responds, and suddenly both of them are giggling like they’ve heard the best joke in the world, and Wash is just standing by his front door, more confused than he’s ever been in his life.

“Me and Simmons are having dinner at our place tonight, do you want me to call and tell him that you’ll be there too? Might be nice for you two to meet properly,” Carolina suggests, already pulling her phone out of her pocket.

“Yeah, sure. I think we still have the ingredients for Mom’s chicken alfredo, maybe we could cook that?”

“The next time you get anywhere near the kitchen is when I’m dead. We should order out, I think. Quesadillas sound good to you?”

“Sounds great. Hey, Wash,” Church says, seemingly remembering that he’s still there, much to his surprise. “Can we leave now? The Dominican take-out place down the street closes in 30 minutes and I need to pick up dinner. Plus, if I get there early I can waste some time flirting with the chick at the counter.”

“Isn’t that chick Tucker’s ex-girlfriend? The one he wouldn’t shut up about for a week straight?” Carolina adds helpfully, looking down at her phone and waiting for Wash to open the door, stepping out into the hall and waiting for Church.

“Are you fucking serious? Out of all the girls in town…”Church trails off as he joins Carolina in the hall, both of them walking away without another word in Wash’s direction.

“What the fuck was that,” Wash says, more confused and vaguely annoyed than he’s been in years.

“Forgiveness?” Caboose offers, unfolding himself from the corner. Wash is even more surprised that for once he actually has a valid answer to something.

“Huh. Imagine that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check that sweet semi-A.Ham reference at the end, tho. thats some clever shit right there, if i may say so myself

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this au for the longest time and its actually done, like fully done, holy shit. I guess expect weekly/biweekly updates? havent quite decided yet tbh


End file.
